


For Me, It Isn't Over

by madeof_it



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Not Epilogue Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 07:14:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1849162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madeof_it/pseuds/madeof_it
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lavender Brown spent the last five years broadening her horizons overseas. She's come back to Hogwarts with one hope in mind -- and it involves Ron Weasley.<br/>(implied passing mention of Hermione/Severus but eh)</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Me, It Isn't Over

Lavender Brown was returning to Europe after having spent some time traveling the world, on assignment with the Daily Prophet and their new Reporter's Exchange program. The point of it was to open the writers' eyes to the different cultures, and in turn try to make them more open-minded themselves. The general thought was that open-minded writers made for less bias in their pieces, which could make for a wider readership for the flourishing London wizarding newspaper.

Lavender hadn't expected to be one of the people chosen for the position, nor had she expected to enjoy it so much. She'd spent much of the last five years following her graduation from Hogwarts bouncing from wizarding community to wizarding community, immersing herself in the different languages that lilted around her heads in waves.

Of course, much of that time had been spent thinking and evolving herself. Remembering her behaviour at Hogwarts during her schooldays never failed to bring a flush of shame to her cheeks, and the concerns of her childhood (makeup, hairstyles, which boy she'd try to snag/snog next) felt strange and foreign next to the new set of values her new world-travels had brought to her -- things like world hunger, and human slavery, and how rare and readily accepted love could be in this world that was full of such dark things.

It was that last thought that propelled her back to Hogwarts this time. She'd turned down a long-term writing assignment in a small, secluded village in South America (one that was quietly attempting to integrate wizards and muggles) to attend her class reunion, and for once she found herself looking forward to seeing the people she'd grown up with.

Like Ron. She knew that their relationship when they were sixteen had been doomed to fail, both of them held captive with a desperate void that neither was actually capable of filling. Even then, she had clung to him with the knowledge that he would leave her, that he would find someone better for him, someone he would love more than he'd ever allowed himself to feel for her.

Despite their break-up almost a decade prior, she still harbored this secret hope in her heart of hearts, that someday they'd come back together, they they'd see each other as they were Now and not as they were Then, and would be able to find some happiness. Her connections within the press kept her updated on the gossip surrounding him, and she knew about his on-again-off-again relationship with Hermione Granger, and about the trysts he had in between with various Quidditch groupies.

Without really knowing, without even speaking to him, she could tell that he was searching for something more than what he had, too.

And it was that thought that pulled her to the Great Hall on that chilly December day. Snow was falling outside the large windows, and the enchanted ceiling was even dropping some fluffy flakes on the attendees, although they were neither cold nor wet).

She'd wandered around the room, champagne flute in her hand, wearing a deep purple dress that fell from her curves in waves. _One thing on-location reporting is good for_ , she thought, _is helping to keep a svelte figure_.

Lavender knew she looked better than she had when she was a teenager, although she'd been pretty then, too. The hard work of actually participating in the stories she would eventually write about (because she had turned out to be quite a brave girl, so maybe the Sorting Hat hadn't been wrong all those years ago) had given her strength that came with helping the locals farm, and all the baby-fat she'd carried had melted away to reveal her lean form. Her hair was still a long mess of light-brown curls, and she'd allowed these to hang loose.

Someone had told her once that the movement of them as she threw back her head and laughed was utterly enchanting -- and she didn't think Ron had been capable of lies in the intimate moment he'd revealed that to her.

She passed her classmates, each of them as dressed up as she was, and stopped to talk to a few of them. The gathering held a sort of show-and-tell feel, and she'd find herself gazing at strange objects people thrust under her nose, as if they were trying to prove their worth with tangible things they'd gathered over the years. 

Yes, here was Neville, clutching some rare potted plant, which hadn't surprised anyone in attendance. Luna held a long string that had an empty loop at the end, and when asked about it she just muttered about some Humdinger Nonsense that must have escaped. Seamus was carrying a smoking set of something that was probably too dangerous to be holding in close quarters, but she grinned along with him as he explained what it was (though she was careful to not breathe in the smell of it). Ginny had gone on to be a Holyhead Harpie and was dragging her Nimbus 10K behind her as if it weren't worth hundreds of galleons. Oddly, Harry and Draco had nothing in their hands except each other, and that was probably the most surprising of all.

Until he'd spotted her.

Lavender had been leaning up against one of the walls, taking delicate sips from her drink and wishing she'd had the thought to wear something a little less revealing. How quickly one forgot the drafts of a large castle.

She'd barely formed that thought when she felt a _whoosh_ of heated air surround her, and the Warming Charm settled on her bare shoulders. She started.

And there he was. Ronald Billius Weasley stood before her, towering over her, having filled out his once-lanky-and-gangly form, although she wasn't sure how. She gasped with an intake of breath, her lip caught behind her teeth as the corners of her mouth turned up. Her wide brown eyes traced his outline, from his feet encased in worn black shoes to the creases of his pants and then up his torso until they met his eyes.

They were soft and blue, and suddenly all she could think of was summer afternoons spent staring at cloudless skies, their backs on spiky green grass as they'd held their wands up and cast their Patronuses into the air and recalled the happy thoughts that had allowed his Jack Russell Terrier and her Fennec Fox to burst forth like the happy giggles that inevitably soon followed.

Their relationship hadn't been completely unhappy memories. She wondered what he thought when he saw her. She wondered what he had held on to, what he remembered.

"Well, Lavender Brown." his voice was quiet, and she recalled what his breath felt like on her earlobes.

"Ron! Fancy meeting you here," she'd replied, a slight emphasis on _fancy_ , because she certainly did.

Their arms simultaneously extended towards each other, and then dropped suddenly. He looked unsure, and she didn't feel any more confident in his presence, knowing that she had years and years full of words that were threatening to burst forth from her. It was taking everything in her to control the dam that was building with each second he stood in front of her.

And again, he shifted, moved towards her as she stepped back and then they were hidden from any prying eyes (not that there were any, with everyone else in the hall occupied with making themselves look as good as possible) in a shadowy alcove.

The smell of him washed over her, and she almost wept with the familiarity of it, the smell of cotton and sunshine and some other thing that was almost like cinnamon but that she'd always known was unequivocably Ron. Her palms found themselves on his chest, and then his arms were around her, her ear pressed to his chest and tears almost spilling from her eyes at the relief, the rightness of being wrapped up inside of him after so long.

She shook, and he tensed. Neither of them spoke. Seconds passed, or maybe it was minutes or days or a thousand years, because she knew that this was what she'd been searching for her whole life, that this was what she had run away from to come back and find again.

They separated, although barely, their bodies still touching in different places, and he was bent over her, both of them breathing the same air. She felt like she was inhaling him.

His lips were soft on her forehead, and her eyes drifted closed, trying to make this moment last because she never wanted it to end.

And then he spoke, and his voice was leaden with more feelings than he could articulate, and he cracked as he breathed just two words that broke everything in her.

"We can't."

His left hand brushed over her face, and she saw the gleam of gold on one of his fingers, and that was when the tears finally started flowing from her eyes.

\-------

She had raced away from the Great Hall after the gleaming gold band had brushed against her cheeks. The chill of the solid metal had frozen more than her skin, and her tearful flight had not gone unnoticed.

Lavender Brown was gone, her dress a swift purple streak as she ran out of the Great Hall of one of the only places she'd ever really called home.

And she'd left behind a startled man, his hand still raised as if he could feel her soft cheek underneath it, his eyes shuttered as he slouched in place with a grimace affixed to his face.

"Ron, what happened just now?", questioned his curious best friend.

Harry Potter had seen Lavender's frantic fleeing from Hogwarts, had watched as she stumbled and sprinted towards the edge of the school's property to Apparate away to who-knew-where. Few other people had noticed it, still wrapped up in their own efforts to appear successful and important at this reunion Dumbledore had sponsored.

Ron Weasley mumbled back, "I don't know, mate. I mean. I know. But, I don't -- I wish she hadn't left. I don't even know where to find her."

He sounded bewildered and defeated, his uncertainty clear in the furrow of his brows as he rested his weight on the gray stone walls.

"Well, what did you say to her?", the Boy Who Lived questioned.

"I touched her face, and it was like there was a fire in me, and I haven't felt that way in so long, if I ever have. Surely never with Hermione, or any of the other girls I've encountered over the years. And then I saw my ring, and I told her we couldn't, and then she burst into tears and ran out of here! Merlin, I don't know what's happening. I never thought I'd see her here. I thought you said she was on assignment in South America or something!"

Harry shrugged. "That was just speculation. Smith had mentioned something about it being a possibility. It seemed like an amazing opportunity, so I was surprised to see her here instead."

Known for his abilities to make friends in important places, Harry had befriended the new editor of The Daily Prophet, which allowed him to have an extensive knowledge of a lot of the wizarding world. Zacharias Smith, former Hufflepuff, hadn't grown out of his tendency to be a bit of an arse, but somehow he and Harry managed to get along (much to the chagrin of Ron, who still couldn't stand the berk). But even Ron had to admit that Smith's knowledge was useful -- especially since he was technically Lavender's boss, and sometimes fed him updates through the mouth of one Harry Potter.

He begged Harry to get information on Lavender from Smith, just this once, and swore to never ask for anything again. Harry had laughed it off, saying that among friends there would always be room for favours, before sauntering back to his platinum-haired mate with the promise that he'd owl Ron with anything he learned.

\-------

It was nearly two months since that fateful December day at Hogwarts. Lavender stood in the living room of her small home, pyjama bottoms covering her bare feet as she alternated standing stock-still and pacing the bare wood floors. She was cold and shivering but she didn't care much, wondering exactly what it was that she would do next. She'd finished her lists and her home was finally clean, and she was left with an unease from not having anything left to do.

After her harried flight from the gleaming ring on Ron's finger, she'd almost Splinched herself in her emotionally-charged Apparition. She was lucky she hadn't.

She'd marched straight to Zacharias Smith's office, tendering her immediate resignation from the paper -- and he'd denied it. To her surprise, he'd adamantly praised her, saying that she was one of the best writers on staff and he'd be damned if she'd let him leave the room without some kind of explanation. He mentioned how circulation had been up since she'd been given her own travel column, and asked if she was playing some kind of game with him. What did she want? A raise? A bigger office? An assistant? He'd pounded his desk with frustration when she couldn't articulate why she'd stalked in there teary-eyed and uncertain, but they settled on somewhat of a compromise.

She would be taking two months of paid vacation, and using that time to build up a list of places she'd be willing to visit to include in her pieces on wizarding vacations abroad.

Lavender Brown was not one to look gift horses in the mouth.

She'd left his office much calmer than she'd arrived, and spent the first week living with her parents as she searched for a new place. Her father had been thrilled to have her home, but her mother had seen it as some kind of invasion of her space, and both she and Lavender had been relieved when she moved into a quiet cottage on the edge of Hogsmeade.

It felt odd to have moved to close to the place where she'd felt her heart break. Each morning, she rose to the view of the castle looming outside her window. She spelled heavy drapes to cover the view.

Slowly, she managed to re-orient herself with her new home, cleaning away the years of dirt and dust from years of misuse by the previous owners. She regularly trekked into Hogsmeade, making friends with Hannah Abbott, who now owned a sporty restaurant/pub named The Quaffle. Hannah would feed Lavender in exchange for stories of her exotic travels. Lavender refused to acknowledge that maybe she kept returning for more than just Hannah's kind friendship, knowing that Ron's presence was highly likely eventually as he was part of the same Quidditch-crowd that made The Quaffle so popular.

Maybe it was that knowledge that led her to shower and change, not bothering to tie back her long brown hair and allowing to flow loosely around her shoulders. She marched into town, head held high and shoulders back, straight to her regular stool at The Quaffle's bar.

It was only with dismay that she looked around and noticed the red, white, and pink decorations colouring the room.

" _Bloody Valentine's Day!_ ", she thought. "It would figure that I'd forget to not get out of bed today."

Hannah heard her muttering and just laughed as she flicked her wand to clean and dry a pile of heavy mugs.

"It's a good thing you appeared, Lav. Someone's been waiting for you for most of the day."

Lavender froze as Hannah gestured to a far corner of the room, winking at the brunette that had suddenly paled. She didn't want to turn around, unable to think of a single person she'd WANT to see, and utterly unable to forget the one person she'd assumed it was.

She was right. Ron Weasley was peering at her, trying to be inconspicuous over the rim of his glass and failing utterly. When he realized she was looking right at him, he at least had the courtesy to blush and his eyes fell to the table.

Unsure of where her sudden flare of anger came from, she hopped off her stool and stalked over to him, pausing just inches from him with her hands on her hips. As he was seated, she had the advantage of being a few inches above him. What she hadn't accounted for was that his eyes would be right level with her chest, and she blushed in return even as she frowned at him.

"Why are you here?" she demanded. "You've come to rub it in my face, haven't you? That you're happily wherever with whomever and I'm wasting away in a lonely house pining over you? Well, you're wrong! I'm fine! I'm a successful writer and I'm NOT lonely and I'm happy!"

And with that she burst into tears.

Ron's eyes were wide with the shock of her unexpected outburst, but he quickly registered her ragged sobs and ushered her outside the bar, giving Hannah and the other patrons an apologetic look and a slight wave with their departure. Lavender cried, even as he steered her down the cobbled roads to her own house, muttering some spell that unlocked and opened her front door before he led her inside.

She was confused at his attentions, and especially at the fact that he knew where she lived and that he'd been able to break through her own wards.

He seemed to understand her thoughts, and sheepishly mentioned that he'd asked Smith about her. And that his best friend was the famed Auror Harry Potter, after all, so it was only natural that he'd know some useful spells.

Even before she had a chance to compose herself, he'd sat the two of them on her deep leather couch, stiffly turning to her and taking a deep breath.

"I've been looking for you since you ran away at the reunion. I want to explain things, and I'm hoping that you'll give me some kind of chance, whether it's to garner your friendship or something more. I'll be satisfied with whatever you choose to give to me. No. That's a lie. I know what I want from you, but I'm not sure that it's feasible, especially since we hardly know each other anymore, and there's this huge gap of misunderstanding between us."

He stood and started pacing, unknowingly mirroring her own actions from earlier in the day. The red-head's agitation was clear.

"I don't know WHY I feel these things about you, and I'm not even sure WHAT I'm feeling. All I know is that I'm drawn to you enough to have spent the last two months befriending that git ZACHARIAS SMITH so he'd tell me where you were, and then I even spent some time with your parents, trying to convince THEM to tell me and trying to ensure that they believed that I wasn't going to kill you or some nonsense."

She was startled at that, especially since neither Smith or her parents had mentioned anything about a persistent Weasley badgering them for her whereabouts.

"Do you remember our last Valentines together?"

He continued at her nod.

"I don't want anything like that. We were both so self-conscious, and frantic, and it made us frustrated and cranky, and I got you some chocolates without knowing you were allergic to nuts and you spent the day alone in the Hospital Ward with Poppy, while Hermione berated me for being an abominable boyfriend.

I want to try again, though, and this time I've brought you sweets that I know you'll like (your father said you would), and I haven't bothered with flowers (he also mentioned that you hated things that died). So. Lavender Brown, would you allow me the honour of being your Valentine for this day, and your company for dinner tonight?"

She let out a long breath she hadn't known she'd been holding, and her cheeks flushed as she nodded a simple 'yes', unable to find anything else she could possibly say.

\-------

Their Valentines date had been a raging success, even if Lavender had been reluctant to admit it herself. She was still wary of their budding relationship, knowing how much and how easily he could hurt her with any of the words that could fall from his lips.

That date had led them to further evenings in each others' company, and to this dark Friday night with the two of them sprawled across the leather couch that had started it all. They'd both reclined, using a simple spell to widen the couch so they could lay side by side as they quietly talked.

Most of the night had been spent recounting where the years had taken them -- the years between their departure from Hogwarts as new graduates and the seven-year reunion that had led them back into each others' lives.

Lavender chattered on about her different writing assignments, speaking of building wells in African villages and chasing supposed Crumple-Horned Snorkacks in the jungles of Malaysia. Through it all, Ron listened attentively, combing his fingers through her long brown hair. Neither of them could think of a more peaceful moment they'd had in their lives.

Finally, she ran out of breath and the two of them silenced. The only noise in the room was their soft breaths, and Ron was almost sure she'd fallen asleep.

That was, until she'd hesitantly spoken his name.

"Ron?"  
"Yeah, Lav?"  
"You never really explained the ring to me. I mean, it's none of my business. But I'm curious. It was there at the reunion, and then I didn't see you for two months and when you turned up again it was gone."

He sighed, knowing this moment would come and uncertain about how to go about telling this story. Lavender, ever perceptive (surprisingly -- he had to keep reminding himself that this 25-year-old incarnation of her was not the same person she'd been as a teenager), pressed her warm palm to his chest.

"You don't have to tell me. I hope you'll tell me eventually, but it doesn't have to be right now."

Her gentle tone decided it for him. Shifting their bodies so they were sitting upright, with her weight in his lap, he regarded her seriously.

"I'm going to tell you this, but you have to swear that this conversation won't leave this moment, and you won't discuss it with anyone else."

She reached across him to grasp her wand, which had been sitting on the sidetable, but he caught her wrist.

"No, a wand oath isn't necessary. Your word would be enough for me."

"Of course!" she exclaimed and he pressed a kiss to her forehead.

With a deep breath, he began.

"Well, it was a cover. An elaborate and very dramatic cover to distract the press (and especially your own paper) from catching wind of who was _actually_ engaged to whom."

Lavender's puzzlement was clear on her face.

"I know you weren't here for the Final Battle, but I'm sure you'd heard about it, right? Right, you had to have with your line of work. I'm almost glad you weren't here for it -- it was horrifying and messy and painful, and you were far away and safe."

Lavender admitted, "That was why dad pressed the program on me so soon after we graduated. He wanted me out of England, and knew that a reporting apprenticeship in a foreign country would be enough to keep me at least safer than I would've been here while the threat of Vol-Voldemort still remained."

Both of them cringed at the name, surprised that it still felt unknown and _bad_ rolling off their tongues.

Ron pressed on.

"We were lucky, though, and there weren't nearly as many fatalities as we'd thought. I was beyond ecstatic that nobody in my family was killed. With the sheer number of us, the odds were already stacked against our favour. Anyway, a lot of families weren't so lucky, and it was even worse for those members of the Order that didn't have any family begin with."

He paused, then asked, "What do you know of Professor Snape's role in the war?"

Lavender's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"Everyone knows that! He was a spy for Dumbledore the whole time and was instrumental in Voldemort's defeat. And wasn't he badly hurt during that last confrontation?"

Ron nodded grimly.

"He was so badly hurt that even St. Mungo's couldn't help him. They put him into a magical coma in the hopes that it would help, but it was slow healing for him. The steps that ended up curing him were Hermione's own idea, and took the expertise of half the staff of Hogwarts, along with Dumbledore himself to get him to any sort of normal life."

More surprises. And then one of Lavender's eyebrows arched with suspicion.

"This is about Hermione isn't it? Those fake engagement stories in the Daily Prophet were planned by you all to distract from Snape's illness? But why? He was a war hero!"

"Professor Snape," he automatically corrected, years of Hermione's own badgering about respectful titles finally having bludgeoned themselves into his brain.

"And yeah, he was a war hero by then. But there were also a lot of remaining Death Eaters that wanted to get their hands on him, not to mention leagues flailing fangirls that wanted a chance to nurse him back to health themselves." This part was said with mild disgust.

"So Hermione and I created a further uproar by pretending that our relationship was taking a step further, and the entire wizarding world focused on the two of us, leaving Professor Snape alone to recuperate in peace."

"That makes sense," Lavender said softly, the frown on her lips the only indication that she wasn't pleased with what had been necessary. "But that doesn't explain what you meant when you implied someone else was secretly engaged."

"Um, half of the 'fake pairing' was involved," he hedged, hoping she'd figure it out on her own and allowing him to get away with not having to mention it himself. He wasn't looking forward to this part.

She stiffened in his lap, her arms immediately dropping from their grasp around his neck as her eyes narrowed.

Lavender Brown was glaring at him, the stare even more terrifying than any that Severus Snape, bastard extraordinaire, had ever managed to aim in his direction.

Suddenly, he realized she'd misunderstood.

"No no no!" he yelped. "It wasn't me! It was HERMIONE, and she was engaged to the greasy git himself, but I was a cover. Everyone expected us to end up together, although neither of us could understand why. Merlin knows that we'd have killed each other within a year. We're kind of infamous for our noisy (and very public) rows. Fortunately, any press that was directed towards us WASN'T directed towards her and Severus. Shortly after the reunion, the two of them eloped and left me free of the entire facade. Surely you read about that?? They got a whole two-page spread in your paper!"

She shook her head sheepishly, muttering something about having wanted to be out of touch for a bit. Thankfully, he knew what he meant.

"Anyway, that's why I said we couldn't. Because we COULDN'T at the time, not with me pretending to be with Hermione. If anything had happened with us then, the entire ruse would've been ruined and we would've been a huge spectacle: and SEPARATELY. The press would've found out about Hermione and Severus before they had a chance to get away and have some peace together. And I have to admit that I don't like the idea of sharing you with the entire wizarding world anyway."

Lavender scowled saying, "I appreciate that you're thoughtful enough to help out your friends like that, but I really wish I'd known. It would've saved me a lot of winter angst and cold tears in the middle of the night. I didn't think I'd ever get a chance like with you again."

With those words, he peppered her face with light kisses, murmuring, "It seemed like a good idea at the time. And you've got me now. And I'm not letting go anytime soon, even if Harry Bloody Potter needs me to cover for his relationship with Draco Malfoy."

Unable to contain her laughter, Lavender scolded him saying, "You know that everyone thinks of Harry and Draco as the darlings of the wizarding world with their tragic love story turned happy ending! And you'd better stay away from the both of them."

More muttered affirmation from him, and then he was tickling her as she squealed with delight, the years they'd spent apart melting and reforming into something the both of them could easily fit into.


End file.
